Los Angeles-based artist, Gordon Magnin, produces work that is a perfect combination of his education, talents, and environment. After receiving his Masters Degree from the Southern California Institute of Architecture, a bachelors of science in structural engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno, and completing studies at the Mountain School of Arts, Gordon finds himself in a city that is visually influenced by celebrity and Hollywood advertising.

Creating collages using appropriated photographic images, Gordon challenges the intended “intended objective, interpretation, and significance” of our daily diet of celebrity, advertising, and consumer based images. Gordon’s work was recently included in the 2010 “Photo Artillery: In the Realm of Lenses” at the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles, curated by Paige Wery and Tulsa Kinney of Artillery Magazine, and he has exhibited in and been published by numerous galleries and magazines.

This work represents a continuing series of imposed abstractions through the mediums of collage and photography. Found images, originally intended to direct and control public perception, consumer activity, and self image, are modified to create a sense of ambiguity to heighten mystery and defy closure.

These activities may enhance your enjoyment of this work:
-Being paraded before press photographers by the FBI after a 10 week standoff at your Montana bunker
-Saving your urine in bottles to defend your squat when the pigs come.
-Finishing your beer before attempting to set your broken nose bare handed.
-Spending the evening walking up and down the street looking for a place to shoplift dinner.
-Shaking the roaches out of your clothes in the morning.
-Smoking your last cigarette.

These activities may interfere with your appreciation of this work:
-Consulting a lawyer
-Trimming your lawn
-Balancing your checkbook
-Shampooing and Conditioning your hair
-Joining a video buyers club.
-Becoming an officer of the peace